Rebekah Brooks was accused of bullying the Government into ordering a British police investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

QC Robert Jay claimed Mrs Brooks threatened to put Home Secretary Theresa May on the front page of The Sun every day until she ordered a new inquiry into the missing child.But Mrs Brooks denied she had used threats and said her argument — and that of Maddy’s parents Kate and Gerry — had simply “persuaded” the Tory-led government soon after it took power.

She said: “I didn’t speak to No 10 or the Home Office about the McCanns until after the campaign had been won.”

Mrs Brooks, then News International chief executive, had personally negotiated the serialisation of Kate McCann’s book about her missing daughter for around £500,000. Maddy went missing aged three five years ago on a family holiday to Praia de la Luz. Extracts were published by The Sun and the Sunday Times, with the Sun campaigning for UK police involvement in a case generally perceived to have been botched by the Portuguese police.

Mrs Brooks said that in a meeting with Maddy’s parents, her father Gerry “said he wanted a UK police review of the case”.

She added: “The McCanns were deeply upset that there hadn’t been a review. We said, ‘We will join forces with you’.”

Mrs Brooks said she personally did not speak to Downing Street or the Home Secretary but believed Sun editor Dominic Mohan or political editor Tom Newton Dunn may have.It was put to Mrs Brooks by Mr Jay that the Met’s investigation had so far cost £2 million of public money. “Some would say maybe that money might have gone somewhere else,” he said.

Asked by Mr Jay whether she was behind an “implied or exaggerated threat”, she said: “I think the word threat is too strong.” She said “persuasion” was more accurate.Lord Justice Leveson intervened during the questioning. He asked whether Brooks was involved in a strategy to threaten No 10 in order to obtain a review of the Madeleine investigation.

“I was certainly part of a strategy to launch a campaign in order to get a review for the McCanns,” Mrs Brooks said.